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Europe is investing heavily in trains

nytimes.com

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Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#141

Post by lelandbatey »

uoaei wrote: post #93
Sharlin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is perfect, but also remember that people always find things to complain about, particularly if they don't have personal experience of less well functioning systems.

By that logic, no one should complain about anything, because we don't live in literal hell. But that is of course preposterous.

They're not saying there's no reason to complain. They're pointing out a very valid phenomena. For those of us on the total outside, it helps us temper bad feedback. Otherwise, you can end up with a situation like the following:

Person A from place without infrastructure X: wow, life with infrastructure X sure would be better. I wonder if we should invest in X?

Person B from place with infrastructure X: There's lots of problems and it annoys me daily.

Note that in this situation, the wrong conclusion is to say "well, then maybe infrastructure X is a bad idea". We want to avoid that line of thinking (since it's not an appropriate conclusion given the statements), so it's worth pointing out many tempering factors, such as those mentioned by the parent comment.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#142

Post by yywwbbn »

mynameisash wrote: post #83
noahtallen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m an American who recently took a train in Europe from Paris to Brussels. Some brief thoughts: - It was so fast! Under 90 minutes for a journey which would have taken a few hours by car. Clearly much faster than a plane on this particular route, due to extra waiting and security in airports. - It was also a very comfortable mode. If you’re traveling with friends, it’d be very easy to socialize around a table. Quiet…

> I mean, compared to the US, it’s a delight! For a similar city-to-city distance (Portland to Seattle), I’d love a 90min transit mode, especially if it was relatively cheap. Fully agree. Years ago, I took Amtrak from Minnesota to Seattle, and it was 36 hours. I enjoyed most everything about it except that it took. So. Long. I rarely drive down to Portland, but if we had a ~1.5hr train, I'd probably do it several tim…

Minneapolis to Seattle is around the same distance as Madrid to Warsaw. And for that trip you’d need ~4 transfer and it would take ~30 hours in total. So it doesn’t seem that much better.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#143

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

Sharlin wrote: post #56
encryptluks2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trains are incredibly expensive to maintain. The US still relies a lot on manual operations when running trains. I wonder if they will ever be able to fully automate their travel.

Not so. The whole point of trains is that expenses are largely one-off. Building the infrastructure is expensive. Recurring costs are much lower than other modes of land transport, ceteris paribus.

Rail is much more expensive to maintain than roads on a per-kilometer basis - where are you getting your numbers from?

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#144

Post by jhgb »

novembermike wrote: post #91
AnonCoward4 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in addition to that they also removed a lot of rail lines, especially goods traffic. It would've been a boon to have fewer trucks on the motorway and probably better for the environment.

European trains don't really do that much freight though. They tend to be optimized to carry people. America is actually way ahead of Europe in terms of rail freight, something like 10x depending on the measurement.

Russia is ahead of the US, even in absolute tonne-km terms. And I don't know about other EU countries, but we (Czech Republic) seem to be transporting almost exactly as many tonnes per capita per year as the US, despite the fact that we have mixed rail traffic. The US just wins on tonne-km since it's larger, so the average distances are larger as well. But purely the volume of freight seems to be about the same, despite heavy passenger traffic.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#145

Post by gpvos »

blamazon wrote: post #53

One thing that's cool about intercity train travel is that, while high speed rail is an ~=obvious economic miracle, trains can be slow and still be commercially competitive. I would much rather take an overnight sleeper train than either an early morning flight or a night flight with hotel room. The sleeper train will arrive right to the city center and save a lot of hassle and I always sleep like a rock on sleeper t…

Also, train companies were (and RENFE still is) neglecting night trains because their marketing department and direction were more interested in snazzy high-speed trains, so they didn't upgrade old train stock and stopped night services that were still filled to the brim with passengers.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#146

Post by [deleted] »

toshk wrote: post #126
lqet wrote: post #26

Here in Germany, for as long as I can remember, the government praises itself every year for investing as much in rail as never before. I have not noticed the service quality to change for the better over the last 15 years. The ever-rising investments seem to be only enough to keep the status quo of the crumbling infrastructure.

Deutsche Bahn is a disaster. Extreme delays up to 2 hours more often then not. Rude staff. Forcing moms with kids out of the train by police. Travelled for 3 summers through germany, now just take the plane.

[deleted]

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#147

Post by zimpenfish »

lqet wrote: post #65
skrbjc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your perspective from someone close to the situation there. I believe many Americans have a picture of a perfect system in Europe, but the truth is likely different. Can you elaborate on the negative aspects of the train system, as you see it?

A short answer for Germany would be: the system is operating at its absolute limits. The results are employee burnout and bad reliability. An example: a few years ago, they introduced a new way to reduce delays caused by trains arriving so late at their destination that they cannot make their scheduled return trip. This is the so-called "Pofalla-Turn", named after the manager who supported it: if a train has a delay…

> if a train has a delay of over 30 minutes, the train will often just stop at some station

I've seen that happen in London, sadly, although it's less of a problem given the general frequency and other alternatives (bus, etc.) Also the "if the train is going to be delayed enough to cause payouts, just take it out of service before the deadline" trick.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#148

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

recuter wrote: post #105
noahtallen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m an American who recently took a train in Europe from Paris to Brussels. Some brief thoughts: - It was so fast! Under 90 minutes for a journey which would have taken a few hours by car. Clearly much faster than a plane on this particular route, due to extra waiting and security in airports. - It was also a very comfortable mode. If you’re traveling with friends, it’d be very easy to socialize around a table. Quiet…

Eurostar runs direct trains from London to Rotterdam & Amsterdam, 3.5 and 4 hours respectively. You can't really compare to a similar route in the US because there are hardly any and hardly anybody uses them. The train routes in EU are busy and frequently full , just like planes. Obviously booking ahead is cheaper, how else could you do it? Top tip, plan a head and read up a little bit on seat61: https://www.seat61.c…

We have the same buses as you these days. Megabus exists to connect many larger metropolitan areas. More or less the same vehicles as you'd find for similar services in Europe. Sadly, none of the "sleeper bus" variety that have existed (from time to time) in Europe.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#149

Post by gpvos »

fundatus wrote: post #94
ParksNet wrote: post #48

It doesn't make sense to emphasize passenger travel over goods transport for rail. Rail's strength is efficient transport of heavy loads at slow speeds. People are light and often want to go at high speeds. Europe should reorient its rail network for rail transport, and passengers can travel by bus or plane. But - Europe's rail network is completely reliant on subsidies, and its easier to get them when you're transpo…

Not sure about other countries, but Germany's long distance trains are run for-profit. Only commuter trains are subsidized. Tracks are paid for by taxes - but so are streets.

In most European countries, even if the financing is organized differently than in Germany, the long-distance trains bring in the most money and would be profitable if run entirely commercially.

Re: Europe is investing heavily in trains

#150

Post by dwighttk »

Johnny555 wrote: post #35
dwighttk wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every improvement you are asking for (except for lower prices) is going to cost more money.

Does it really cost money to have the Belgrade train destination sign say "must buy bus ticket and transfer in Novi Sad"?

Oh yeah a sign would work… (I was thinking continuing the train to the stated destination.)
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